South Pole - Cameramen from the World Wildlife Fun charity disguised as mermen have filmed a unique marine love-in by a colony of Giant Squid in a subterranean lake 4km below Antarctica's ice sheet.

Up to 500 of the massive tentacled beasties have been videoed having group carnal knowledge in a huge, ancient underground pool lying some 200km below sea level.

The area is scheduled as an International Landmark Site but is likely to be deployed as a nuclear spent fuel dumping ground from 2025 following the closure of the UK's past-it Sellafield nuclear plant.

Before the toxic waste arrives UN marine conservation bodies are bankrolling the current video project that aims to establish the size and nature of the cephalopod colony with a view to its eventual relocation somewhere more appropriate.

Lake Victoria in East Africa has been mooted as a possible new site along with Lake Coniston in the UK's Cumbrian Lake District.

This week's rutting season activities are the culmination of weeks of raised hormone levels among the tentacled brigade in an annual fertility contest traditionally starting around the time of the Summer Solstice when dozens of the largest, horniest male cephalopods were first spotted impregnating yearling females.

The video and an accompanying talk by Sir Richard Shattenboro will be shown at the Institute of Marine Engineers' annual garden party at Barking High Street, Isle of Dogs, next Wednesday night.

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